What trauma?

Over on Pharyngula, a fundie troll has been trying to assert that godlessness is related to family problems during childhood. e.g.

Well, I just can't help but notice that the people who espouse atheism, evolution, anti-Christian viewpoints, wild and cra-zee promiscuity, and aberrant sex of all kinds, all had some really tough stuff happen to them when they were young, usually involving big problems with their fathers, which I firmly believe is why they have a hard time establishing a relationship with their Heavenly Father.

Of course, the troll goes on to employ the time-honoured "proof by selective example" to show the "strength" of her argument. She lists a few prominent figures who've expressed views she hates and points to their family problems, and hopes to thereby denigrate their views. You can read the easy refutations of her assertions in the Pharyngula comment thread.

So, there's a fundie troll commenting on PZ Myers's blog. What's new?

A coincidental encounter with another fundie who clings to a similar opinion. That's what's new.

Last night a man, after talking to me for five minutes and finding out of my apostasy (the subject was inevitable since we met at a party of a mutual Christian friend), convinced himself that I must have suffered some life-changing negative event to cause me to reevaluate my faith. As became apparent during the conversation, this "perceptive" man was an only-a-theory, all-scientists-have-been-duped, not-a-clue-about-science fundamentalist.

I have lived a fortunate life. Abuse free. Trauma free. Happily married for over 23 years. Well balanced kids. Stable employment. What led me away from faith was learning—finding out about the history of the church, finding out how a council of ordinary men decided what books to include in their canon, examining the claims that had been taught to me and reinforced by Christian friends, understanding how religious memes survive and propagate.

It seems to me that the idea that learning leads away from the church is uncomfortable for fundamentalists. Any other excuse (e.g., traumatic experience) is a rationalization to cling to. Counter examples must be relegated as exceptions. 

I won't try to generalize to all Christian fundamentalists, but when you meet a fundie, it's wise to be prepared for the preconceptions they may have about your life, the way you think, and the way you've been duped by the world-wide conspiracy to marginalize (their interpretation of) God.

Comments

Funny, how these fundie types always assume that every atheist fits some ridiculous far-left stereotype: something straight out of the sixties, with flower power and free love and loads of marijuana. Ha. My family, now, has been atheist for generations. I am an atheist. My parents were atheists before me, and their parents, and THEIR parents, too. Before that, who knows? We could've been atheists all the way back to the Dark Ages, although that seems rather unlikely.

At any rate, my family has ALSO always been anti-sex, anti-drugs, and decidedly anti rock-and-roll. Even in the 1960s, my father had short hair, and wore a suit every day. In their wedding photos, you can see my geeky father and my virginal mother, smiling nervously into the camera like the stuffiest of Christian newlyweds.

Although they're not Christians, they're indistinguishable from the religious folks in their neighbourhood. They profess the same morals, but commit the same sins. They drive the same car, live in the same suburb, do the same jobs, and get the same haircuts. If they were Canadian citizens, they'd even vote the same way in the elections.

These fundamentalists, always trying to stick themselves in the good and moral camp, and cast everyone else as a filthy pagan! Faugh. Don't they have eyes?

As far as childhood trauma goes, a Christian teacher once gave me the belt for refusing to pray. That was pretty embarrassing, in front of the whole class, and all. Oddly, I can't ever recall being punished by an atheist for exploring religion.

On my University ListServ, I am engaged in a continuing "discussion" with some classmates who are on the religious right. They blame society's ills on a lack of morality, which they equate with a lack of religion. We've covered the farce called Intelligent Design, abortion, etc.

It's funny, though, that some of their examples show the opposite: the Pakistani woman gang-raped by order of her village elders was done under a strict moral code by religious people.

I see no connection between religious belief or lack of and abuse. People are entirely capable of fitting cruelty into the context of their beliefs.

It's interesting to see how Christianity has hijacked morality. Christian dogma maintains that without God there would be no morality; we would all be just animals. With the wealth of history available to us it becomes obvious that people will commit unspeakably immoral acts both with and without God. Having an invisible friend whose moral authority is supreme, and on whom you can offload all your own moral responsibility, actually makes immoral actions easier to rationalize. The Nuremberg defense has been used in many different forms long before the twentieth century.

i'd have to contest the statement that all Christians believe such things.

Unless your definition of "fundamentalist" (a fairly loose term, like "evangelical) simply includes narrowminded bigots.

It is possible to believe Christianity and not commit intellectual suicide in the process. Regretfully, many people do just that in their "leap of faith".

Meredith, exactly which statement were you contesting? Was it something I said in the main post, or something from the comments?

When I speak of Christian fundamentalists, I don't use the term loosely; I refer to those who treat the Bible as literal truth--the ultimate authority.

As someone who is basically a fundamentalist, although not a Christian, I won't try to address "only-a-theory" (it is, right? Like pretty much everything), "all-scientists-have-been-duped" (although it is very easy to be seduced into following the crowd, whether you're a scientist or a fundamentalist. I wouldn't necessarily say duped, but...influenced, perhaps?) or "not-a-clue-about-science" (very possibly I fall into this category. I'm certainly not well-versed in the proofs for evolution, if that is the subject at hand. Do they all have to do with fossil records, or is there something else?). Fine, I addressed them in a way, but not really.

But as far as morality goes, sure, a sense of morality is innate in all people, atheists definitely included. But if you don't believe that ultimately, this sense of morality, and morality itself, come from some supreme being, then what is it based on? Is it just an arrangement of convenience, or is it more than that? And if it's more than that, where does it get its authority? And what is the logic to distinguish between humans and animals, say, in giving them rights in our moral system? If you don't believe in a God, I would say that any "higher" code of morality is just a delusion (a useful one, but a delusion all the same).

Judah,
I know you weren't wanting to get too deeply into a discussion on those first few points, but it's worth making sure we're speaking the same language. Definitions of words are important.
Theory has more than one meaning. When scientists refer to the theory of evolution, the word is used in its scientific sense, that is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena." When creationists use the "just a theory" phrase, they are (in most cases unwittingly) misunderstanding what is meant by theory and assuming it is merely the common "hypothesis" definition. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, but no, it is not "Like pretty much everything." It is a working explanation of the diversity and mechanics of life that unpins all modern biology.

The "seduced by the crowd" explanation for the general acceptance of evolution also relies on a misunderstanding of the process of science. Yes, there is a strong motivation for scientists not to adopt new explanations until they clearly and conclusively improve on previous explanations. But, there is also a strong motivation (call it ego-driven if you like) for scientists to make their names remembered as the discoverers of better explanations. Science thrives on criticism, not on conformity.

The evidence for evolution comes from more than just the fossil record. Studies of mutation and selection in bacteria, plants, fast breeding insects and small animals provide direct, repeatable measurements of evolutionary mechanisms. Over the last decade, genomic studies have provided more evidence than you can point a stick at. See Carl Zimmer's entry on bioinformatics for a (relatively) new area that is opening up and providing new evidence.
http://www.corante.com/loom/archives/2005/10/16/whats_a_gene_for.php

Now, on to the subject of morality.

This is definitely an area where I can see we're not speaking the same language. Your question, "where does it get its authority?" presupposes that morality has to be backed by some external authority or foundation. When you ask for "logic to distinguish between humans and animals," you're looking for some simple definition to be able to categorize entities into clearly delimited groups. Once we get above the quantum level, practically everything we encounter has shades of grey rather than clearly marked boundaries.

Look at birth and death. At what point in growth does a potential human change from a bunch of cells to a sentient being? At what point can an embryo sense pain? At what point does a comatose patient on life support cease to be living? Look at human defects. Compare a severly intellectually disabled human with a chimp. Which is more deserving of "rights"? Does it depend on being born of human parents, or does it depend on displaying levels of intelligence that we associate with being human? How do we make those decisions? There are no black and white answers constructed on an external reference; there are only conventions that we adopt to simplify our understanding of the world.

The subject of where our morals come from is huge. All I can do is to point to a summary article like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality
as a kick-off point. There are no easy answers.

I guess it isn't fair to say that I don't want to get into a discussion about something, and then make comments about it anyways.
So, for the definition of a theory, "an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena," sounds the same as a hypothesis to me. A hypothesis is a hypothetical explanation advanced to explain specific phenomena, right? I assume that where your definition differs from a "hypothesis" the "well-substantiated" part. In other words, a scientific theory has reasonable proof of its truth. Am I right?
So then, with regards to evolution, I think there has indeed been ample observation of "evolutionary mechanisms", such as viruses evolving immunity to antibiotics. When it comes to radically different species having diverged from a common ancestor, though, I think that there is far more speculation involved. There surely aren't fossils for most of the links in these processes, and many of the bones which were once taken to be remains of prehistoric forms of humans have been shown to be mistakes or frauds. (I am not saying that there are none that are now considered genuine, but there certainly have been many purported "links", in the past, which are now disowned. [for example Piltdown Man]. I think this raises doubt on the whole foundation of the conjectures scientists make that the skeletons they find represent substantially different forms of men or apes than exist today.)
As for your genomic evidence, it seems that the various genes in men and monkeys are very similar, right? Five hundred years ago, I could have told you that men and monkeys are very similar in physical ways. I do see how this could make evolution an attractive hypothesis (in this case, not a theory with proof behind it, but a hypothesis which could explain certain facts). For my part, a creator of all life could make the different life forms as similar or different as he wanted. I see no need for evolution to explain similarities between life forms. (I wouldn't necessarily object to evolution on theological grounds, but I think that believing in a creator obviates the need for evolution to explain the differences between species.)

As for "seduced by the crowd," with respect, I think you're being a bit disingenous with your response: "Yes, there is a strong motivation for scientists not to adopt new explanations until they clearly and conclusively improve on previous explanations." I wasn't talking about conscious motivations; I was talking about a human weakness, which virtually everyone, scientists included, is subject to, that is, the tendency to want approval from colleagues, and not to say things which are considered ridiculous by one's peers. And subconscious motivations like that one can very easily influence a man's thought processes, to the extent that he really believes that his conclusions are objective. (I certainly don't claim to be free of them myself.) Most revolutionary theories in science I can think of was rejected at first by the mainstream scientists of that day. (Take these Australians who just won the Nobel prize for their work on ulcers.) As for the counter-motivation you offered, "to make their names remembered as the discoverers of better explanations", that certainly would not apply to a scientist who decided to reject evolution in favor of creationism. Not quite a new discovery.
So I've responded at greater length about the first stuff. Feel free to respond or not.

The part about morality, though, I don't think I understand your viewpoint. You say I'm not speaking your language when I presuppose that it has to be backed by some external (I would rather say "absolute") authority or foundation to have meaning. But you don't really give an alternative. You just raise a bunch more moral questions about shades of grey. But where does even the black and white come from? Just about everyone agrees that it is wrong to murder somebody, right? But why is it? (I know I may have opened the door to the shades-of-grey issue with my mention of people vs. animals, but I was just trying to show the inherent illogic of morality. But forget that.)

You say that the subject of where our morals come from is huge. But forget where they come from--do they have any meaning? Without external authority or foundation, how can they have any meaning?

So do you believe that they are, in fact, meaningless in any absolute sense, although they may be useful as conventions? Or do you believe that they do somehow have an absolute meaning, despite their lack of "foundation"?

PS- My posts are swelling to alarming length. We'll probably end up having to agree to disagree, if only to save the time these discussions take.

Judah,

Re: definition of theory. Yes. The "well-substantiated" part makes so much of a difference that to conflate the two distinctly different meanings of the word is absurd, yet that is what is being done whenever the much-abused "evolution is just a theory" line is quoted. You can see why it aggravates scientists.

The points you make about
- fossil gaps;
- stories of past hoaxes; and
- no proof, just an explanation that fits
sound like the standard points made by creationists for decades.

The fossil gaps argument is a wonderful game. Every time a new fossil (X) is found to fill a "gap" between existing fossil A and existing fossil B, giving us a much clearer picture of the evolutionary pathway for that organism, the creationists merely point to the gaps between A and X, and between X and B. For an example of where that gaps game has led to, I'd encourage you to read about exactly how small all these subdivided gaps have become in the whale evolution fossil record:
http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/

The Piltdown discovery was heavily disputed from the start by scientists. I think you'd do well to read the history of that hoax written by someone other than a creationist. Stories of past mistakes and hoaxes that have now been well and truly debunked (by scientists) do nothing to weaken the accepted evidence for evolution. I agree that it's a problem when media science writers present scientific conjectures as though they are accepted wisdom. The general uninformed reader then has no idea what parts are extremely hypothetical and undergoing vigorous debate, and what parts are accepted by everyone working in the field.

Your point about conscious vs unconscious motivations and human weakness is fair. The need for acceptance by peers still exists. All I can do is point to the the level of vigorous debate that occurs within science and the history it has of exposing and overturning ideas that don't stand the test of time. If you haven't worked in some field of science, you could be blissfully unaware of the intensity of scientific debates, seeing only what the media presents as "exciting discoveries."
There are lots of scientists who have tried to overturn evolution. The motivation to have their names remembered is still there and is very strong. It's not the newness of the discovery that's important (and as you note, creationism isn't new) it's providing a better explanation--one that fits all the evidence, not just carefully selected talking points.

In order to take any of this discussion further, I think you need to familiarize yourself with the wealth of evidence for evolution. It's not just the mechanisms that are reproducible and directly observable in the lab. It's not just the "micro" changes that have been observed in lifeforms of all shapes and sizes from bacteria to mammals. It's not just the way the fossil record continues to confirm detailed predictions with every new find. I can't possibly cover it all in this format.
There's a good summary at:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
There's a lot to read, but without biting the bullet and educating yourself using material that is free of creationist presuppositions, you leave yourself quoting the standard creationist talking points without understanding their flaws. You're prepared to believe that the majority of scientists are deluded by accepting evolution as a presupposition, so I know that you'll be prepared to countenance the possibility that creationists are deluded, and take seriously the evolution evidence presented.

I'll deal with the morality questions in a separate comment.

Now onto morality again:
I don't believe our morals have some absolute pre-defined teleological meaning. I believe that we, in the process of being raised in a culture and in personal relationships, assign meaning and purpose to our existences. But, please don't take that to mean that I think morals are in some way arbitrary or unimportant. They are heavily influenced by our environment (not only social but physical), yet they change over time and vary from person to person.

You ask: "But where does even the black and white come from? Just about everyone agrees that it is wrong to murder somebody, right? But why is it?"

One can look from a very evolutionary stand point, and say that any society that thinks murder is good will jeopardise its own chances of survival. That is, of course, too simplistic, and too prone to distortion by contrived example, so I'm not going to try to draw out the complete argument for the existence of empathy and moral behaviour in terms of species survival, but instead I'll suggest some very broad ideas you may want to consider:
1. The idea that it is better to exist than not exist is enough to assign a value to the termination of a life.
2. The fact that we (generally) dislike and avoid pain can be explained in terms of survival selection. Pain is a wonderful mechanism to teach self preservation.
3. The fact that we can recognise actions that cause pain in others of our kind can also be explained in terms of survival selection. Social animals survive and thrive on the strength of the group and the ability of a group to act as a coordinated unit. Being able to perceive pain in fellow group members is a skill that promotes coordination, and consequently, the survival of the group.

I suppose if you wanted to tie morality back to some "absolute" then you'd have to look seriously at "it is better to exist than not exist."

OK, I'll try to look through talkorigins.com.

With regard to morality, your second two points deal with survival selection, more or less what I meant by "useful delusions", or "useful conventions". You agree that they are not tied back to some "absolute". (In other words "morality" does not really have meaning, the way "happiness" or "certainty" has meaning. "Right" and "wrong" have completely arbitrary definitions--though we may happen to agree on some of the specific "right"/"wrong"s, nothing is inherently right or wrong.)

Conceding your first point for argument's sake, all it says is that it is better for me to exist than not to exist. I don't see how it puts any obligations on me (which is what morality comes down to).

So, leaving aside your last sentence, which I don't follow, it seems that you're saying that the only meaning in our lives is the meaning we assign to them. That's fine, and logical, but ultimately, I think it means that there is no way to apply your personal standards to others, and to say that anyone is morally "evil".

Judah,
I think of points 2 & 3 being more than just "useful". Inasmuch as they contribute to continued existence, they can be said to be "good" (and I'm still supposing that existence itself is "good"). The question of how much pain avoidance, cooperation and empathy contribute to survival is far too big to cover here. Besides which, it would only begin to touch the subject of ethics, and without a strong background in ethics as discussed by philosophers like Hume and Kant, we'd be struggling. (I'm not sure about you, but my reading is limited here.)

If you conceded that (1) it is better (a value judgement) to exist than not to exist, will you also concede that (1a) for another human that it is better for them to exist than not to exist? Then (assuming you've given that extra ground) do you see that it would be morally "bad" to terminate the existence of that other human? In the absence of other complicating factors this line of reasoning places a moral obligation on you to refrain from murder.

The link from (1) to (1a) is not automatic. Any philosopher could trive a truck through the holes. The fact that your existence depends on the existence of other humans helps to plug some of those holes, but since we're talking in really loose generalities, I'm not going to try to fill any others.

Your last paragraph seemed to reach a conclusion about what I can or can't say, based on "leaving aside" one of my statements. You can guess why I disagree with your very last sentence. ;-)

Have you looked at how any of the enlightenment philosophers derived systems of ethics without need for a supernatural authority?

I'm afraid that my knowledge of enlightenment philosophers is sadly nonexistent. I speak for myself alone.
Anyways, I'll concede 1a -- that wasn't my point. Where I lose you is going from 1a: "bad for the other person," i.e. he doesn't want/gain from your action, to making that action "bad", and imposing an obligation on you to refrain from it. I simply don't see how you can impose any obligations without recourse to some sort of external authority.

About my last paragraph, of course I agree that leaving aside a statement of yours and drawing conclusions from the rest is bad form, but I did try to write why I didn't understand that statement (in the next-to-last paragraph). I've pretty much said what my problem is in this post, too.

By the way, if it doesn't offend you, I'd like to ask you a personal question: What's your history? How old were you when learning led you away from the church? What was the final straw? Were most of your friends atheistic, or religious?

I ask purely out of curiosity. If these questions are offensive, please just delete this post. Despite being a fundamentalist, I have great respect for the trait of independent thinking (unfortunately hard to find in a pure form, and the purer, the harder), in principle.

I'll try to clarify the important question. Correct me if I've missed the mark.
When not under an obligation to an external authority, why should any person behave according to what they acknowledge to be morally good?

I can answer this question for myself, but I can't answer it for you. The answer for me is "because it makes me happy."

Now why is it that behaving according to what I know is morally good makes me happy? Is that intrinsic to my nature? Is it my upbringing? Is it an ingrained fear of society's (culturally developed) discipline mechanisms? Unfortunately, there is no way for me to answer those questions about myself, using only myself as a subject. I can't rewind history and re-run it with myself being brought up in a different culture to see if I think and behave differently.

Here's a link to a short discussion on Hobbesian ethics which looks at motivations for apparently altruistic acts:
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v2n1/samaritan.html
What that article suggests to me is that there is more than one mechanism by which we feel the need to respond to other people's conditions, and that it isn't the same mechanisms that dominate in all people.

By that, I'm forced to admit that the reason I feel obligated to act morally may be different from the reason that you feel obligated to act morally. For me, dispensing with belief in an external authority and an eternal reward made no change in my desire (or perceived obligation) to act morally (but hey, who am I to attribute this to anything other than behavioral inertia? ;-))

If you're certain that without an external authority you would have no obligation to refrain from murder (other than fear of the social consequences of being found out), then I'd have to hope that your faith stays strong. ;-) However, from what little I know of you, I prefer to think that without any religion your empathy would obligate you to behave towards others in accordance with what you value for yourself, even though you might not be able to explain why.

As I've alluded to before, I think that empathy in humans is an evolved trait that has fostered cooperation and thereby contributed to survival of the species. However, I realise that (for now at least) you don't accept human evolution, so the connection I see between survival, cooperation, empathy, and the existence of human morals is obscure for you.

I'll have to think about whether I'll answer the personal history question here. The Vivisection of Virge exposes certain parts of Virge's brain through telling stories in light verse, expressing opinions, even having the occasional rant. So far, I've tended to steer this blog away from being an intensely personal journal.

Sure, "because it makes you happy" is a good enough reason to behave morally. (One could argue that, ultimately, that's the only reason for doing anything, whether you're religious or not.) But it's a personal reason--if you want to call that an obligation, it's one you impose on yourself. I would argue that using this line of reasoning, you would not be justified in calling someone evil (implicitly saying that he has obligations that he isn't fulfilling) just because what makes him happy is murder, rape, and pillage.

Of course, this is only an intellectual argument whether morality can have any real meaning without external authority--practically speaking, I would not expect you to have a less developed moral sense because you don't believe in a God. A conscience is part of us, whether you think it was implanted by God, Evolution, or anything else.

'From what little you know of me, you prefer to think...' I believe this is a contradiction in terms.

As for the personal question, forget it. I only asked out of curiosity; I was completely unsure of how you'd take it. There's no need to answer, believe me.

Sorry, forgot to respond to the part about evolution:

I think I can accept evolution, for argument's sake, at least. And I have no trouble seeing how empathy/morality would be a valuable development for the species. But that doesn't seem to address my point that usefulness, etc. does not mean that morality exists as an abstract and binding standard.

PS-It occurs to me only now that perhaps we are talking at cross-purposes and this is all a matter of semantics. After all, the point I'm making seems to me to be patently obvious, and in your posts you don't seem to directly address it.

I think that, while I'm talking about the "reality" of morality as an "abstract and binding standard", and saying that without some absolute authority it does not exist, you're talking about the "reality" of morality as something humans experience (as opposed to construct artificially), which is "good" on both an individual level (it makes you feel good) and on a species level (everyone does better if everyone follows the moral rules). You're perfectly fine with saying that on an abstract level it does not exist. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

PPS-Looking back at my previous comment, maybe I should clarify what I meant by a contradiction in terms. I just meant that 'from what you know of me' implies a conjecture from knowledge, while 'I prefer to think' implies a preference for one side, where there is a lack of knowledge to show which is correct.

It struck me as I read your second-to-last post that I should have asked you what you understand by the term real meaning.
Is real meaning something that can only come from outside our natural world, or can an intelligent being find or assign real meaning by observation and analysis?

If you limit real meaning to something that must be externally derived, then you end up heading towards where Spinoza got to--that there is no "real" difference between good and evil. However, if you then argue that morality cannot have any real meaning without external authority, your argument is tautologous.

Your last post clears up some of the confusion. You're looking for some abstract and binding standard on which one could base a system of ethics. The abstract and binding standard that I suggested as a possibility was "existence=good". If you accept this as a standard, and yet refuse to admit that it imposes any obligation upon you, then how is that different from accepting that there is a god who sets rules that you have no obligation to obey? If accepting an external authority obliges you to follow its moral code, then accepting an internally recognised abstract principle also obliges you to follow its moral code.

I agree that it's harder to see the chain of logic connecting real-life decisions about behaviour back to such a very abstract principle, but that doesn't make the system devoid of meaning. It's just harder to understand and more likely to be interpreted differently by different people.

To chime in, Judah, I personally think that any rigidly defined and reinforced standard of behaviour doesn't exist without external authority (a good example of where one does exist with extrnal authority is in the military services). Morality as you define it would be a subset of that. When morality is seen more as emergent behavour (like I think it is) something that's self policed from within (both within the individual and within a larger community) the standard is more flexible and vague.

When looking at the world I find that to be the case. What's considered *good* in one part of the world might be considered *evil* in another, although evil is a very strong word and maybe not quite applicable. There are some moral absolutes that are universal pretty much everywhere though. Stuff like, taking anothers life is wrong. Causing excessive misery to others is wrong as well. These can easily be accounted for with Virges existence=good theory. I believe that this very basic sense of good and evil is meaningful even without external authority to validate it.

Even then the excessive part in law no 2 (Causing excessive misery to others is wrong) is somewhat grey. For example where I was raised, hitting or spanking children is considered very wrong, only bad parents use corporal punishment. This is considered perfectly fine and maybe even desirable elsewhere in the world.

I don't know if Im maybe talking across pruposes now but this is what I thought of reading through those comments.

Today Carl Zimmer posted an entry on The Loom about neurobiology and the concept of "self." In it he linked to this article
http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Morality.html
from last year, which focuses on understanding moral decision-making. It's well worth reading (but bear in mind that Greene's research is really on the leading edge--a lot more hard work and heavy criticism will be required).